Look, I like Joss Whedon. I like his tongue-in-cheek-but-formulaic groundwork for the MCU

He has become a bit formulaic, but it is a formula he pretty much created. I won't say he was the very first writer/director to play around with things like trope inversion (such as pushing a badguy into an engine intake just after they have concluded the monologue that for a more normal director would have identified said badguy as a character you're going to be seeing all season long as they hunt our intrepid heroes) but he did it with a style and panache that was undeniable, all while providing logical reasons for the trope inversion (seriously, why on Earth would the heroes of other shows NOT get rid of the badguy after he's basically said he will never rest until he murders them?) as opposed to doing it purely to surprise people when it would make no sense (e.g. inverting Batman's trope by having him quip when Wonderwoman shows up).

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to watching Crank. Came across How Did This Get Made's episode and decided to give it a try. I miss movies that embrace ridiculous premises.

I tried watching Crank. First, it was awful. Then it was so awful that it was good. Then it went so far as to be awful again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I got as far as the scene where he's snorting the coke. That was it for me. Not because it was too wtf but because I could no longer take the roller coaster of it vacillating between being awesome awful and agonizing awful.

@karmageddon Don't ever watch Crank 2 High Voltage then :) It goes even deeper into so awful it's good to so awful it's... wtf no at the end lol. I actually enjoyed the first one for pure entertainment factor.

@karmageddon Hahaha, yeah, it was a real treat. It definitely had pacing issues, the music choices didn't mesh with what was happening on the screens, but there was fun to be had.

I think I would recommend Hardcore Henry over Crank, but I do love the scene where Statham is robbing the pharmacy for dristan and then Dwight Yokum asks him if he has a boner after double barreling it, then he has a fight scene in a hospital gown with a giant boner.

The first trailer I saw, I was like OK... Glover as Lando? I can totally dig it. And every clip WITHOUT Ehrenreich was pretty baller...

But Ehrenreich? Is not Solo. And I'm not just talking looks. He doesn't have the swagger, the cadence of voice, none of it. That's why I'm just not feeling it.

You can get away with an actor who doesn't look 'quite right' so long as they can pull off the rest. So long as they can get the mannerisms, the speaking style... But he doesn't have any of Solo's tics. Not a single one. Nothing in that trailer said Solo to me.

Of the new SW stuff, this is the one I feel the least interested in and it upsets me so much because it comes out just a couple days after my damn birthday. :(

@Auspice
I felt that way when they cast Ehrenreich. I think that Scott Eastwood might have been a better choice among the final few that were being chosen from the final auditions.

Eastwood was higher on my list, too.

I mean you can watch the trailers and in Glover, you can see Lando. He's got the smirk, the mannerisms. He mirrors the way Billy Dee Williams played Lando. And it works. I feel like Ehrenreich didn't even try. He's just playing 'random 'cool kid from the wrong side of the tracks' #15.'

Just watched From the Dark on Amazon and I absolutely loved it. Low budget horror but it has surprisingly good acting and they make up for lack of a special effects budget with some very creative camera work. I highly recommend it to any horror fan. For those who might be worried, it's not too gory or bloody though there is some of each.